nineveh

today might possibly be one of the worst days of my life.

no. actually, no, it's not. but, it turned terrible. jack is fussy and mad all day long. today, i tried to put him down for a nap, but he screamed bloody murder for an hour, making me want to fall on the floor and cry, or just leave him to cry on his own. i did neither. he's teething, i'm spacing out his feeding, and he suddenly hates his room. awesome!

i opened my Bible for encouragement. i thought, "a psalm! psalms might be nice!" i wound up in luke reading about end times and then found my way to nahum. i'm going to keep reading, but in my "journaling Bible", the intro to nahum says this:

"when Jonah preached repentance on the streets of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, the people responded and were spared. a century later, sometime between 663 and 612 b.c., Nahum preached in a time when Nineveh would not repent...the Assyrians were notorious for the brutality of their treatment of other nations. Nahum declared, however, that God is sovereign: He punishes whom He will, and they are powerless to stop Him." (emphasis mine)

and then the book of nahum begins:

"the Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on His adversaries and keeps wrath for His enemies. the Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet." (1:1-2)

as a proclamation on the Assyrians, that sounds good to me. what i took away from this (and still am, as i read on), is the notion that we are powerless before God. His way is in whirlwind. He will by no means clear the guilty. He is avenging and wrathful. He redeemed Nineveh once before, but in 100 years, they fell into their old ways. they didn't want any part of God's mercy, so they continued to ruin other people and their nations. they became bullies. God doesn't like bullies - especially after He gives them chances to quit being jerks. they could've had grace, and God is slow to anger, but He is also great in power.

i can appreciate the violence of the images, suddenly quelled with pictures of serenity - the juxtaposition of the two is lovely; it reminds me that when someone asks, "is God wrathful and avenging, or is He loving and good?", i can say, "yes!". He is all of the above. He is one and the same. He is both simultaneously, unlike the creatures He made who can only be one or the other in the same second.

"who can stand before His indignation? who can endure the heat of His anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by Him. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; He knows those who take refuge in Him." (1:6-7)

i think i needed Nahum because...it forces me to step outside of myself for a minute. look up, look out. stop. because, i am a mess. a mess! a disaster! emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, and probably even physically. i'm walking forward through life, but i can look back and see my path scattered with my dislodged fingers, arms, bits of my legs - i'm falling apart while i go! i need someone to put me back together, again. it's not trouble in the sense that i'm being tortured or my family is being torn apart, or we lost all our money and jobs...it's just...inner turmoil. it's trouble, to me, and since the Lord is good, i'm going to use Him as a stronghold in this day of trouble. He knows me, because i take refuge in Him.